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Inside AdSense
Google's official blog for news, tips and information on AdSense.
Bye, bye, beta...
Friday, September 30, 2005
If you've logged into your account in the past couple days, you might've noticed that Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT for short) is officially out of beta. So what's changed? Our process for verifying bank account information has improved.
After you submit your bank account information, we will place a small test deposit into your bank account for you to keep. Once you see this test deposit credited to your account, just input the amount of the deposit into your AdSense account to help us verify your bank account information.
Testing your bank account before we make your payments means a greater chance of an error-free deposit. From now on, if you choose to use EFT, you can rest assured that we're taking the steps to make your payment successful.
We're excited about this launch and want to thank all of you who took part in our beta testing phase. We appreciate your help.
Posted by Alexa - AdSense Publisher Support
And many more...
Thursday, September 29, 2005
While we work to support you, we always appreciate your support, too. On Tuesday many of you sent us some very cheerful birthday wishes and we thought we'd share one of them with you:
Hello! Dear Sirs,
First of all we would like to congratulate you on Google's 7th Birthday. We wish all the best and wish you to stay on the top as world's Best search engine! Keep on this good work!
Best regards,
HITECHHOST.NET Team
A warm thank you to all of you who wrote in and granted our birthday wish: to keep making our users happy for many more years to come. Now, who wants some leftover cake? ;-)
Posted by Suzie - AdSense Publisher Support
Bloggggggger
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
We've just made it a lot easier for Blogger users to make money with their blogs. Our new integration with AdSense lets you sign up from within
Blogger
. And we've added a tool for inserting the ads in your blog (so you don't have to mess around with HTML). There are even built-in options that will analyze the colors on your blog and choose a recommended color scheme. Check out the
mad science
, why don'cha.
Posted by Jason - Blogger Manager
Tuning in to your feedback
Monday, September 26, 2005
As a member of the AdSense support team, I help publishers with everything
from
optimizing their ad implementation
to understanding the
AdSense payment schedule
. With the wide range of incoming inquiries and concerns, we are always looking for ways to better understand what's most important to our publishers.
Recently, I had the opportunity to work on a team with engineers and product managers to help redesign our "Ads by Google" page – the feedback page users land on when clicking on the "Ads by Google" link on each ad unit. Using your feedback and aiming to improve our response time, we added categorization buttons so that users can tell us if they are providing feedback about Google ads, AdSense publishers, or something entirely different, like how they enjoy exploring the Grand Canyon with
Google Earth
.
So far, we're seeing positive results with the new Ads by Google page, and we hope you like it. The new page allows us to quickly know if you love the Little Bow Wow Rap ad on your site, or if you are interested in a new feature. This helps us to understand and prioritize what is most important to web users and our publishers, and what features we should focus on implementing in the future. From time to time we may experiment with new designs to continue making this a more useful page - stay tuned.
Posted by Katie - AdSense Publisher Support
Preventing leaky filters
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Creating effective
Competitive Ad Filters
is easy as long as you follow a few simple guidelines. Here are some quick tips to improve your filters:
Tip 1: Don't use "www" in your Ad Filters
Ads should be blocked at the domain level. Frequently, publishers append "www" to their filters, such as using 'www.example.com' instead of 'example.com'. If you filter 'www.example.com' and the ad points to landingpage.example.com, the ad will continue to appear on your page. However, filtering 'example.com' will block ads from 'landingpage.example.com', 'example.com/subdomain', and 'www.example.com'.
Tip 2: Don't believe the myth about blocking 'low-paying advertisers'
Our auction system automatically selects the best performing ads for each page to help you earn the most possible money. This is especially true with our new
expanded text ads
. By filtering ads you think are low paying, you could actually be cutting out the most optimized ads and decreasing your revenue potential. Each ad that is filtered is one less bid in the auction, lowering the price for the winning ad on your site. You benefit most when there is a larger pool of advertisers competing for a place on your site. Additionally, when we calculate the auction, we take ad
clickthrough rates (CTR)
into account - an ad with a $0.25
cost-per-click (CPC)
with a 5% CTR is more valuable than an ad with a $1.00 CPC but a 0.1% CTR.
Learn more
about how the auction works.
Tip 3: Don't go overboard with filters
Only filter URLs when absolutely necessary. As mentioned, each URL you add to your filter list may cut into your AdSense revenue potential, so it's important to think carefully before deciding what to block.
Some publishers worry that competitive ads will affect their bottom line and they may overuse filters, limiting the ad inventory available for their site. Our advice? Test it. Some publishers don't use filters and sell at the same levels after adding AdSense to their pages. This might not be true for all publishers, but you should test first so that you know the actual effects before unintentionally reducing your AdSense revenue.
Posted by Bryan - AdSense Publisher Support
Tools of the trade
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
They say you learn something new every day. Today, maybe that something can be a new way to improve your website. Google has more tools for website publishers, so you can focus on creating content while we help with everything else. Recognize traffic trends on your site with
Urchin
. Or, add some interactivity with
Blogger
. Have some video content? Give
Google Video
a try to get the visibility it deserves.
If you're hungry for more ideas, visit our
publisher tools site
. Take advantage of the tools that make sense for your site, and you just might learn something in the process.
Posted by Mohammed - AdSense Product Marketing
See things before they happen
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Wish you could see your AdSense ads before pasting the code on your pages? With the
Google AdSense preview tool
for Windows Internet Explorer, you can. Even publishers who use the preview tool aren't always aware of all its useful features, so we decided to highlight a few gems:
Filter more efficiently – You don't have to wait until AdSense ads are on your page to block any unwanted ads from appearing. It’s quick and easy to preview your site’s ad inventory and add URLs to your
Competitive Ad Filter list
.
Test color schemes – You can preview your ads using a selection of
color schemes
, helping you to visualize how AdSense will look on your pages.
Experience geotargeting – Do you wonder whether your users in India are seeing the same Google ads as users in France? With
geotargeting
, AdWords advertisers choose specific countries they want to target. Then, AdSense determines where your users are located based on their IP address and serves geographically targeted ads accordingly. The preview tool allows you to see your site's ad inventory for a variety of locations.
Please note that if you're a newly approved AdSense publisher, the preview tool may not display relevant ads until your site content has been indexed by our crawler. This means you may have to run the AdSense code on one or two pages of your site before trying out the preview tool.
Posted by Suzie - AdSense Publisher Support
From the Inside AdSense mail bag
Monday, September 19, 2005
Amy asks:
I just pasted the Google code into my travel site, but the ads I'm getting are public service ads. Why is that?
Inside AdSense says:
If you’ve just pasted the code on your site, our crawlers need some time to gather information about the content of your page. For the first 48 hours after you put the code on your site, public service ads (PSAs) might show up, but you should expect ad relevance to increase over time.
If you do not see your ad relevancy improve within 48 hours, check that your page has enough text-based content for our crawlers to determine relevant ads to display.
If these tips don’t seem to apply in your case, you may find it helpful to
learn more about PSAs
so you can determine other reasons you may be seeing these types of ads.
Clarence asks:
Why won't the ads show up on my site? I copied and pasted the Google ad code from my account, and I could see the code appearing between the tags in my site's HTML source code. When I looked at my live website, though, no ads showed up at all. I tried to paste the AdSense code into my site a second time, but the AdSense code appeared as text on my live page. Help!
Inside AdSense says:
If you can see the code within the tags of your site's HTML source code but no ads show up on your site, you’re still on the right track.
First, double-check that you’ve copied the ad code exactly as it appears on the Ad layout code page of your account and pasted it into your source without any modification. Some web design programs automatically insert extra line break tags into the HTML code, or you might’ve accidentally removed a piece of the AdSense code when pasting. If the ad code is altered in any way, ads may not appear.
The second time you tried pasting the code, it sounds like something else might’ve happened involving the HTML editor you used to create your web page. If you’ve pasted the code into a 'what you see is what you get' (
WYSIWYG
) editor, this will often result in the Google ad code appearing as text on your live site.
For the ads to appear correctly, you'll need to copy and paste the AdSense ad code into the HTML code view of your page rather than into the WYSIWYG view. In your editor, this might be labeled as 'Code view', 'HTML view', or something similar. Some editors don’t have an HTML view and use an 'Insert HTML' function to paste HTML instead. If you're unsure where to paste the code, we recommend using our
HTML troubleshooting guide
or contacting your HTML editor's customer support center for assistance.
Posted by Carrie - AdSense Publisher Support
Reports done your way
Friday, September 16, 2005
You can customize hamburgers,
search results
, and the ring of your cellphone whenever your mom gives you a call. But can you customize your AdSense reports? You bet. Even better, you can view the customized reports at any time with just one click. Here's how:
On your
Advanced Reports
page, create a report with a variable date range (e.g. "yesterday", "today", etc.). Choose any combination of channels or just aggregate data to view all channels, then make a selection between page impressions or ad unit impressions.
Generate the report, and you'll notice a new text box appears above it. Type a name in the box and click "save". That's it - the report you've named will appear on your
Overview
page in the Custom Advanced Reports section and you can view it at any time with one click.
We hope this will free up the time you used to spend selecting the same set of channels over and over, so you can spend it doing other things - like
customizing your AdSense ad color palettes
.
Posted by Rob - AdSense Product Management
Feeds fixed
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Recently, we received emails saying that our feeds were not working properly – thank you for letting us know. We looked into it with a cool tool called,
Feed Validator
. It seems that we goofed and had added some invalid HTML. We’ve gone back and cleaned up those posts, and we have confirmed that the feed is now fixed.
Posted by Rob - AdSense Product Management
Mobile Sitemaps answers the call
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Back in August
, we recommended using Google Sitemaps to help Google crawl your content pages. Since then, Sitemaps has been updated to support mobile website URLs. We know that more users are searching the web from their cell phones and more publishers are creating web pages designed specifically for mobile devices. So, you can now use
Google Mobile Sitemaps
to tell Google about your new and changed mobile web pages, and increase your coverage in our mobile web index. (Incidentally, you can search through these mobile-specific websites using
Google Mobile Web Search
on your phone.)
Posted by Matt - Google Mobile Team
Good news for HTML newbies
Monday, September 12, 2005
You've signed up for AdSense. You've activated your account. You've chosen your ad format and colors. Now you're ready to paste your AdSense ad code into your site. Or are you? If you're new to HTML, you might find it a bit challenging to add our code into the HTML source of your pages. ("HTML source--what's that?")
Have no fear - our new
Troubleshooting Demo
is here! I've worked with other members of our support team to create an HTML Troubleshooting Demo that should help clear up the confusion so you can see the ads on your site without delay. The demo addresses many common issues new publishers face when adding the code to your site, including instructions for pasting the ad code using two common types of design software. It also provides a background on HTML, information on viewing your page source, and tips to address the top four problems faced by new publishers.
If you've used our demo, we
welcome your feedback
.
Posted by Kristin - AdSense Publisher Support
Prescription for G.A.S.S. relief
Friday, September 09, 2005
Now that stats are back up again, your
G.A.S.S.
is probably flaring up as well. We'd like to use this opportunity to introduce a "cure" to the syndrome. The new version of Google Desktop has a plug-in called 'AdSense Status'. This feature allows you to continuously monitor your AdSense earnings and avoid the hassle of logging in to your account every 15 minutes.
Of course, in order to treat your G.A.S.S. you'll first need to download the
new version of Google Desktop
. Then you'll need to go to the
plug-in page
(see example above) to download the AdSense Status feature. It's fast, easy and fun – and we hope it will cure your G.A.S.S. permanently.
Posted by Cathleen - AdSense Publisher Support
Distorted Images
Thursday, September 08, 2005
I’ve heard some ugly rumors circulating about image ads, and I want to separate the myths from the facts so publishers don’t miss out on an important revenue opportunity.
Myth:
Image ads take too long to load and I hate those ‘Shoot the Duck’-type ads
Fact:
We have strict
guidelines
for both animated and static image ads restricting them to a maximum size of 50 kb, so they’ll load quickly on your site – and no Shoot the Duck ads allowed!
Myth:
Image ads don’t pay as well as text ads
Fact:
All ads served by AdSense – whether image or text, contextual or
site-targeted
– go through the same auction process. Opting into image ads maximizes your site’s revenue potential by allowing a greater pool of advertisements to compete for space on your site. Image ads will only appear if our technology determines they will be more effective than any other ads for a particular page.
Myth:
Image ads aren’t relevant.
Fact:
When serving contextually-targeted ads, we use the same algorithm to match ads to your content whether image or text ads appear. With site targeting, an advertiser has determined that their ads are specifically relevant to your users (see example below).
So, here are some recommendations:
1) Under your ‘My Account’ tab, make sure that ‘Ad Type Preference’ is set to ‘Display text and image ads in all ad units’. Then, when generating your code on the ‘Ad layout code’ page, I recommend checking ‘Use my default account setting’ under ‘Ad Type’ (see example below).
2) Check the HTML source code for each page where you are running the AdSense ad code to make sure you have opted into both text and image ads (i.e., google_ad_type should be set to “text_image”)
3) Make sure you are using an
ad format
that supports image ads to take full advantage of this option.
4) Test the image ad option on a small subset of your pages for at least 2 weeks and track the progress using
URL channels or a custom channels
. This will allow you see whether image ads are effective for you. More data means that you can make educated decisions about your site. Try image ads and see the results for yourself.
Posted by Phoebe - AdSense Publisher Support
Temporary G.A.S.S. Relief
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Speaking to AdSense publishers at face-to-face events and in reading emails and forums, we on the AdSense team have seen a phenomenon develop that's probably best described as G.A.S.S. - Google AdSense Stats Syndrome. The primary sign of affliction is the compulsive need to check AdSense stats every 15 minutes or so to see how much you've earned since your prior login. Sufferers face strong withdrawal when separated from a PC with Internet access and have been known to experience mild abdominal discomfort and general irritability.
So for you G.A.S.S. sufferers, we will offer a bit of temporary summer relief this Thursday. For some scheduled maintenance, our reports will not be (visibly) updated for around 6 hours beginning at 12 noon PST (GMT -8 for you international folks). Your earnings will of course be unaffected, but you won't see any change in stats during this time as we work to improve the AdSense system.
Please enjoy the day and rest assured that things will be back to normal as soon as possible.
Posted by Rob - AdSense Product Marketing
Playing a small part
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Echoing the
sentiments Kim posted last week
, a member of our team recently suggested that we use
PSAs
to increase awareness of the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Our team agreed that this was a great idea and we worked together to make it happen. Starting last Friday, all of our PSAs began directing help to specific charities aiding those affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Posted by Allen - AdSense Publisher Support
A note for the weekend
Friday, September 02, 2005
This Labor Day weekend I’d like to send my best wishes to all those affected by Hurricane Katrina. This is a part of the country I visited often growing up and have always loved. Please know that we at Google are thinking of everyone in the region.
Posted by Kim - AdSense Director
Link up
Thursday, September 01, 2005
If you'd like to offer your readers something different in the way of relevant content, give
link units
a try. Link units offer a unique design and implementation that can adapt to your site and your readers' interests.
Each link unit displays a list of topics relevant to the content of your site, and when users click on one of these topics, they're brought to a page of AdWords ads related to that topic. Though you won't receive earnings for clicks on the topics, you'll be paid for user clicks on any of the AdWords ads on the resulting page.
Link units are available in several
adformats
designed to complement your site's layout. You might wish to place a
horizontal link unit
near a horizontal navigation bar (see the example above). Or, you could use a
vertical link unit
near a sidebar navigation menu (see example below).
For even more effective placement, we suggest creating a color scheme for your link unit that blends with the background of your site.
UPDATED: formatting
Posted by Kristin, AdSense Publisher Support
Channel your energy
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Different sites have different optimization needs - where some sites benefit from simple changes like switching to a wider ad format, others see more improvements after changing ad placement or color. Subtle changes can produce significant results. The key is to experiment, measure, and find what works best for your site. That's where
channels
come in.
Using your channels can help you see a more complete picture of how different types of ads are performing on your site. Do leaderboards perform better than skyscrapers? Or do ads above a navigation bar perform better than ads next to it? Channels help you measure the results. Assign a custom channel to each of the different ad formats running on your site to measure which ones perform best - then you can make changes to maximize your findings.
Here's another tip: include page name, position, ad format, and color in your channel name so you can easily identify what each channel is measuring. 'HomeTopLeaderMotherEarth' tells you the channel is reporting on the leaderboard at the top of the home page with the Mother Earth color palette. These names might look a little funny, but they can help you combine channels into more detailed and valuable reports.
Read more of these
tips
and
learn more
from your fellow AdSense publishers who have implemented similar strategies.
Posted by Bryan - AdSense Publisher Support
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